Sell
Your Story
in a
Single Sentence
Advice from the
Front Lines of Hollywood
Lane Shefter
Bishop
I’d like to dedicate this book to my husband, Andrew, who—since the day we met—has given me the gift of supporting me wholeheartedly in absolutely everything I pursue.
Contents
The Value of a Logline
In the Beginning …
Chapter 1:What Is a Logline?
Chapter 2:Who Is the Protagonist?
Chapter 3:What If There Are Two Protagonists?
Chapter 4:The Group Perspective
Chapter 5:What Does the Protagonist Want?
Chapter 6:What If They Don’t Know What They Want?
Chapter 7:Defining What’s at Stake
Chapter 8:When What’s at Stake Is Already Defined
Chapter 9:Only a Sentence
Chapter 10:What’s in a Name?
Chapter 10 Sample Loglines
Answers to Chapter 10 Samples
Chapter 11:Ageism
Chapter 11 Sample Loglines
Answers to Chapter 11 Samples
Chapter 12:The Adjective Objective
Chapter 12 Sample Loglines
Answers to Chapter 12 Samples
Chapter 13:Be Specific
Chapter 14:The Voice
Chapter 15:Finessing
Chapter 16:Usage
Chapter 17:Fiction vs. Nonfiction/Memoir
Chapter 18:It’s All About the Drama
Chapter 19:The Logline Process
Chapter 20:Expanding the Logline
Chapter 21:Everything Works
Chapter 22:Conclusion
Loglines Cheat Sheet
Logline Samples & Explanations
Workbook—Simple Loglines
Workbook—Simple Logline Answers
Workbook—Complex Loglines
Workbook—Complex Logline Answers
Acknowledgments
About the Author
The Value of a Logline
“WHAT’S YOUR STORY ABOUT?”
It’s the million-dollar question that writers—screenwriters, authors, really anyone putting pen to paper—whether just starting out or highly experienced, get asked perpetually during their long creation process. When faced with this situation, most writers do one of three things: One, they stare blankly, like a deer in headlights, grasping for words that will adequately describe their baby even as they realize they have not in any way prepared for this critical moment. Two, they try to create a ‘tease’ or ‘surprise’ in response by dutifully reciting their back-cover blurb, which unfortunately serves to make their masterpiece sound terribly generic. The last resort is to stumble through a painfully long-winded plot description that includes an excessive amount of unnecessary information and sucks up a great deal of time—boring the listener to distraction.
What’s needed is a top-notch logline, a one-line selling tool like no other. It’s a writer’s most important asset—invaluable for query letters, for keeping laser-focused on what makes a story unique, and for having the perfect elevator pitch ready to go. By learning the secret to writing the best logline possible, a content creator can literally sell their story in a single sentence. This book is the key to unlocking that potential.
In the Beginning …
AS A PRODUCER IN HOLLYWOOD, I LEARNED EARLY ON the value of being able to sell something in a sentence. Most execs just don’t have time to hear an endless plot description, nor read 300 pages of a manuscript. Screenwriters would complain to me about how hard it was to get anyone to read just a 120-page script, but when I asked what their screenplay was about, I was told “It’s Jaws meets The Mosquito Coast” or “It’s Memoirs of a Geisha meets The Soloist.” Those slap-dash descriptions could fit many screenplays from many screenwriters. So how does that help you sell your specific story? The simple answer is that it doesn’t.
During my two-year stint as an executive vice president on the buying side, I would have sincerely appreciated someone who could swiftly and concisely tell me about their project. It would have saved legions of unnecessary meetings and gruelingly long phone calls. Sometimes just getting to the heart of a story was a painful process—but without that knowledge, how could I sell it to a studio or network? As a result, many hours of my job became the struggle to design a logline for properties in our slate when the actual creator had no idea how to sell his or her own piece.
When I started my own company, Vast Entertainment, I decided to focus solely on literary material rather than scripts. I knew from experience that if 200 screenplays arrived as incoming submissions, maybe two of them were good. But if two hundred books came in, probably 50 to a 100 of them could provide a nice base for a film or television project. It was a matter of a higher rate of return for my reading hours. Yet I was in for a rude awakening.
At that time, I found that no one wanted to hear about what they considered “lengthy material.” The page count didn’t even matter: Books as a whole just seemed too daunting. It was all the buying executives could do to focus on shorter, more concise screenplays; they certainly didn’t have the extensive free time to read multiple novels. You’d practically hear a groan when you mentioned that the project was based on a book, and you just knew they were going to make some poor 19-year-old intern read it instead and deliver a short write-up on the plot. I vividly remember one executive literally starting to rearrange items on his desk instead of even pretending to listen, once I mentioned my pitch was based on a book. So it became abundantly clear to me that I had to change my approach if I wanted to set anything up.
I became fixated on the idea of simply focusing on what made a property unique and how I could make that element very clear, very fast, with the most dramatic punch I could muster. After all, everyone wants something that feels fresh, shiny, and new, right? Soon, and with a great deal of struggle as well as a ridiculous amount of trial and error, I determined the concept and elements of a true logline. And I began to sell, setting up more than twenty projects in the first two years through a steady stream of pitches and meetings. With this nod to success, I thought that I couldn’t possibly be the only one looking for this manna from heaven. So for the last few years I’ve traveled all across the country, and even internationally, speaking at writers’ conferences, screenwriting events, authors’ workshops, and book conventions about crafting the amazing selling tool of the perfect logline.
By traveling far and wide, I discovered that the need for this information is, in fact, huge. I speak to thousands of content creators each year who all have questions about how to pitch their material, how to create a selling sentence, how to determine the heart of their work, and how to specify what makes it truly distinctive in an inundated marketplace. And they are from all experience levels, the novice to the professional, and from all walks of life. Literally hundreds of “help me” logline queries are fielded by my offices monthly.
A writer once started a pitch by saying to me, “I know you’ve probably heard many people today telling you their fantasy stories …” I stopped him right there and said, “Why don’t you start by telling me what makes your story unique from the other hundred tales in the same genre I’ve heard today?” That, of course, is the crux of the logline.
There’s never been a book on the art of crafting a true one-sentence logline and the timing is perfect, because films like Twilight, The Hunger Games, and especially Harry Potter really opened the doors for book-to-film adaptations to take center stage. In fact, in the last five years, 16 out of 35 (or about 45 percent) of the Academy Awar
d Best Picture-nominated films were all based on books. In 2014 alone, 31 feature films that were originally novels came out in theaters.
It’s no surprise, since many books already possess a huge built-in following, which usually translates well into box-office dollars. Insurgent alone grabbed $52.3 million in its opening weekend at the US box office, just shy of Divergent’s $54.6 million debut. The Divergent franchise, based on teen action books by Veronica Roth, has garnered a plump $388 million so far, with two movies still to come. According to Forbes, nearly a quarter of the 200 top-grossing films worldwide tallied by Box Office Mojo have been directly adapted from books. Today, astonishingly, nearly 50 percent of all films made are derived from some type of previous piece of work—comics/graphic novels, articles, books, magazines, short stories, and the like. So having underlying material or IP (intellectual property) is now a much-desired resource and can literally be the difference between making the sale and leaving empty-handed.
For example, I have a property about a sociopath lawyer. (I know, some say those are synonyms.) But even with an A-list screenwriter coming in and pitching their fantastic idea for a new sociopath lawyer show, I couldn’t sell it if I couldn’t also say, “It’s based on an amazing book about a real lawyer, in her 30s and attractive, who is currently living in California, teaching law students, and who literally tested in the 99th percentile for sociopathy.” Suddenly, it’s not just made-up fodder from the writers’ minds—it truly exists in reality, and by being based on underlying material, the story becomes infinitely more marketable.
Many times, screenwriters tell me that they are having trouble selling their screenplays and ask me if I think they should write a book built on the story they’ve created. My answer is always the same—a universal “yes.” Basing a script on literary material makes it a more sellable property these days. And many times, the process of creating the logline for the book helps refocus the writer on what problems were inherent in their screenplay that they didn’t see before. Sometimes, I also recommend that they look for news articles online that would support their story, if they need underlying IP and cannot find the right book. You can always find pieces that have to do with one component or another in the script, and those can become your “inspired by” elements. The more ammunition the better in this flooded marketplace—and underlying material, no matter what the source, will make the screenplay even more valuable.
I’m considered a bit of an anomaly in the industry. First of all, because I am a book-to-screen only producer, which means every single one of my projects starts as a book property. And second of all, because I now focus solely on setting up literary material very, very early. In fact, my whole business plan for Vast Entertainment shifted when I realized that I didn’t have to wait for a full manuscript in order to set up film or television deals for literary properties. Sometimes it’s even easier to sell without it, because then the buyer doesn’t have as many reasons to say no—the book isn’t even finished being written yet. It’s sort of like reverse engineering: I can say to the buyer, “What doesn’t work for you about the material? I can have the author change it, since it’s still in process.” Today, about 85% of the material I set up for film and television is either only a simple book proposal or a short partial (approximately 50 to 100 pages), and as far as I know, I’m the only one working in this fashion in the industry today.
Luckily, I can undertake this different type of business model specifically because I am blessed enough to have special relationships with the literary agents I work with in New York—currently about sixty of them. Over the years, I’ve built up a trust level with them, and because of this, they feel comfortable sending me material very early in the process, many times before any publisher has seen a single page. That trust comes from the fact that, based on experience, they know that I’m not going to paper the town with their babies nor take it to any buyer without permission. (Unfortunately, there are many producers who do shop material they don’t have permission to be trying to sell.) Also, on occasion, I am able to return the favor by helping them navigate an option deal or finding out if a producer who has contacted them is legitimate.
I’ve even been fortunate enough to get calls from agents such as this one: “My author just pitched me three ideas and I had her write up 20 pages on each one. Do you mind checking them out and seeing which you think is most marketable to the entertainment industry?”
Of course I said yes, and in fact, I ended up setting up one of those books with Ineffable Pictures. We have just partnered on it with Joel Silver’s company—not too bad for a project that started out with only 20 pages. The funny thing is that it was the only idea the agent felt should be shelved, and had told the writer to backburner it. Instead, I told the agent to have the woman start writing the full story out immediately. It was very high-concept and very marketable—all about a world where organic items have been replaced by synthetics, electronics, and technology. Food is obsolete and the protagonist starts to get hungry—which is illegal …
I also believe in treating people well, which is sometimes—sadly—a rarity in this industry. I email or write back to all of the agents I work with as quickly as possible. I give them continuous emailed updates on the status of their properties, and I never take anything anywhere without explicit permission—period. Anything they’ve asked me to keep to myself, I do. I also make sure to travel to New York as much as possible, because there is nothing like a face-to-face coffee instead of a voice over the phone. In fact, The DUFF, which came out as a feature film in early 2015, is the first literary property I ever set up, and I only got it early because I was literally sitting in the agent’s office when the rough draft came in to her email inbox. She’d already had a multitude of calls from interns and assistants at various companies requesting copies of the manuscript, based on the Publishers Marketplace announcement, but I was there in person, excited to read it, and passionate about my ability to set it up—which I did by packaging with McG’s company and CBS Films. To clarify, McG is a big producer and I brought the book, The DUFF, to his company, Wonderland Sound and Vision, in order to have a strong producing partner. Ultimately, Lionsgate came on board to distribute the picture. In this instance, the book basically sold itself, because the title means “Designated Ugly Fat Friend”—which was a great built-in selling tool—but that is a real rarity. Nine times out of ten, you have to be able to market the book or whatever the underlying IP is yourself, and that’s done by crafting a first-rate logline.
Truly, the most important commodity in the film industry, as with most industries, is time—because no one has any. We are all running around crazily with our iPads and iPhones, hopping planes or trains, trying to cram in “just one more thing” in order to try to make a living and reduce the size of our to-do lists. So the only way to get people excited about a property, whether book or script, idea or invention, is to grab their attention and grab it quickly. Because no matter how busy people are, they always have time to hear one sentence. In all honesty, this lesson became the most valuable one I’ve learned in my numerous years in the entertainment business. And now, I’m passing the result of that insight—the art of the logline—along to you.
CHAPTER 1
What is a Logline?
AS A PRODUCER IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY, I am constantly selling. I sell literary agents on the idea of bringing me a “sneak peek” look at early-stage material—book proposals and partials—prior to it going out to publishers. I sell network and studio executives as well as A-list independent producers on the excitement of new properties coming down the pike—especially those not yet in a publisher’s hands. Most importantly, I sell the network and studio development folks on what these projects could be—a TV series, a movie of the week, a mini-series, or full-length feature motion picture, based on the literary material. How do I do all of this? With a perfect logline—a one-sentence selling tool like no other.
A logline is literally what will sell your m
aterial—a powerfully crafted single sentence that highlights what is most unique about your work. With a perfect logline, you can emphasize how what you have created is different from what anyone else has, and thus help yourself immensely by showing others why they should want what you have.
A few years ago, after spending countless hours creating loglines from the material I was receiving, it occurred to me that it would be extremely helpful (as well as save me a great deal of time) if the writers themselves could provide a logline for their material to their agents—who, in turn, could pass them along to me. So I made this request and, to my utter surprise, received anything but loglines. They were either an amalgamation of the back-cover blurb and a synopsis, or an extremely long run-on sentence trying to incorporate the entire plot. “Don’t these writers use loglines at the top of their query letters?” I asked. “Don’t agents use them to pitch editors and publishers?”
“Yes,” came the reply—these hot-mess write-ups were it. That’s when I realized content creators needed help, and lots of it. I knew firsthand that there was a top-notch marketing tool available to help them instantly sell their work, if they only knew how to do it. And that’s when my numerous seminars, speaking engagements, webinars, and, ultimately, this book sparked to life.
So what is a logline? Well, in the simplest terms, it’s the answer to the question “What’s your story about?” It helps content creators simply and easily sell their work in a single sentence, because the emphasis is on what makes their property unique. In business, it’s called the “elevator pitch,” because it can be said in the time it takes to get from one floor to another while standing with someone in an elevator. The best part of that one line, of course, is that if done correctly, it can entice someone to read your full material—which is always the ultimate goal.
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